Deferred features
The NetHack source contains code for several currently unimplemented features. Some of them are marked deferred, so they may or may not make it into the next version. Many of the following features are included in SLASH'EM. Monsters The beholder ( )Monst.c#line351: a type of floating eye (in fact many eyes on stalks coming out of an even bigger eye; derived from Dungeons & Dragons) with 5 gaze attacks: slowing, sleep, disintegration, stoning, and cancellation. Depending on how the gaze attacks work (none of them are coded yet), the beholder could be an exceptionally nasty enemy. The shimmering dragon ( )Monst.c#line1276: This would leave shimmering dragon scales and let you create shimmering dragon scale mail, which would confer displacement. Monster displacement is not yet implemented, which may be why this dragon is not yet present. There would be corresponding baby shimmering dragons. The vorpal jabberwock ( )Monst.c#line1585: A tougher type of jabberwock (level 20 vs level 15), enabled in UnNetHack. The vampire mage ( )Monst.c#line2010: The next step up from a vampire lord, with spellcasting abilities. Charon Charon ( ) and Cerberus are present in the source codeMonst.c#line2501Monst.c#line302 if CHARON is defined, but even if it is, they are both unique monsters which are not placed by any current map. Charon is a very high level peaceful human who, if true to his name's mythology, will ferry the player across the also-yet-to-be-implemented river Acheron/Styx for a fee. Cerberus is a very high level dog who is tangentially related to Charon in Greek mythology, as the guardian of the gates to Hades. In the SLethe patch, he appears on the final level of the Lethe Gorge. Objects The spellbook of flame sphereObjects.c#line836 and spellbook of freeze sphereObjects.c#line837: creates a tame flaming/freezing sphere which will eventually explode at hostile monsters. These spells are fully implemented into SLASH'EM and are starting objects for Flame Mages and Ice Mages respectively. Reading a cursed spellbook could curse random inventory items Spell.c#line170 if it were of level 8 or higher. No such spellbooks currently exist. There are comments in the source hinting at copper coins and silver coins.Makemon.c#line474Shk.c#line81Objnam.c#line2083 A special artifact attack of magic missiles (analogous to Fire Brand's fire, Frost Brand's cold, and Mjollnir's lightning), has been implemented.Artifact.c#line1000 The weapon's description, most likely a placeholder, is "imaginary widget". Burying There is code for "burying" both you and monsters ("The floor opens up and swallows !"). You can be buried, and stay alive for a while (eventually suffocating), and you have the opportunity to tunnel out.Dig.c#line1456 Other features There is code that gives a 1 in 25 chance of applied bullwhips yanking a monster's weapon away from it, and it hitting you.Apply.c#line2288 There is code that lets monsters use scrolls of fire as a last-resort offense.Muse.c#line1083 There is code for creating force fields over an area of the map.Region.c#line803 There is a hint that randomising the order of the elemental planes is a possibility.Topten.c#line113 There is code to give elves a luck penalty for wielding cold iron.Wield.c#line183 There are hero attributes nv_range and xray_range which suggest intrinsic night vision and x-ray vision may be implemented one dayyou.h#line178. The code for snagging shop inventory from outside the shop (currently requires a grappling hook) has a comment mentioning the possibility of telekinesis.shk.c#line441 This is partially coded in several functions to do with picking up items.pickup.c#line978 pickup.c#line1142 pickup.c#line1238 There is a very slight hint that deafnessapply.c#line215 may be implemented. There is code regarding invisible objectsobj.h#line83. See also *Defunct features: Features that have been present in some previous version of NetHack but have since been removed. References Category:Deferred features